u/Positive_Voice_3728

Hey all,

I've just read Georg Simmel's 'The Metropolis and Mental Life'. I'm really interested in (a) the nervous system effects of the pace and fleeting "discontinuities" of urban living, (b) the impact of anonymous crowds or 'masses' on the individual and (c) the idea of spatial estrangement and how this relates to atomisation and/or "agoraphobia" (Vidler, 1991).

I'm hoping I can explore these ideas more fully, and perhaps build towards an essay on urban isolation in contemporary London.

Could anyone recommend papers in dialogue with, against, or related somehow to the above? I'm ideally looking for the essential "required reading" on this topic as opposed to more niche stuff - though hopefully I'll get to that eventually!

Thanks:)

Could anyone living in or around the Hoxton station / Haggerston area suggest a nice, quiet (or quiet-ish) walking route? Ideally in a park / near some nature, but even low-traffic roads would do.

Been living here a while and struggling to find a decent walking route to clear the head in the evenings. A couple that haven't worked super well thus far:

• London Fields (busy)
• Victoria Park (would be perfect, but it's 35 mins each way just to get there, and an hours usually about the max I have to spare for a walk)
• Along the canal (tricky to zone out with headphones when needing to be aware of oncoming runners + cyclists passing)

Any recommendations for some peace + quiet near the area would be massively appreciated or, failing that, also open to suggestions of places accessible quickly enough via the Windrush line.

thanks:)

Is it true that postgrad classes only run for the Autumn and Winter term, with the Spring term made up of mainly independent study and dissertation writing?

On the website it says the expectation is that you remain "on campus" for most of the spring term, but I've always found that unis overstate these kind of expectations a bit to ensure people are fully committed -- is this actually necessary? Are there usually required contact / teaching hours at this point?

For context I'll be doing an msc in the sociology dept. and wondering if I could cut costs in the Spring term by moving further out from London while I write my dissertation.

I've been thinking recently about how digital life is depicted in contemporary art, particularly books, film and TV. I rarely come across a writer who's really able to land either the psychological feeling or the actual sensory experience of navigating social media, doomscrolling, or even just operating an iPhone, despite how much of modern existence is made up by these moments. Often, I find these descriptions are clunky, overexplained, or rely on ironic distance and clumsily inserted internet slang that doesn't always age well. There always seems to be a slight incongruency to them that I find pulls you from the page, and maybe that’s why they're often omitted entirely.

Similar to how, in film and TV, we haven't seemed to move far past the approach of flashing blue text bubbles up on screen when a character reads a text or clumsily green-screening in a faux-Instagram style interface with massive font size that the camera hovers over awkwardly while the protagonist scrolls. (Pretty egregious example of this recently in The Devil Wears Prada 2)

All that being said, and hoping it makes sense, I'm wondering if anyone has examples of writers who they think have succeeded in describing digital experience well? Especially now as the “iPhone/social media book” is becoming so much more common.  Why/How? Is there a compelling way to describe someone reading a post on twitter or flicking through reels? Is it avoided? Also open to any bad examples too. 

As far as exceptions to the rule, Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte stands out – did a nice job imo of both accurately mimicking actual digital text environments and also just conjuring the claustrophobic paranoia of social media discourse through the mindsets of his characters. Almost writing from inside the internet.

I also think Sally Rooney managed well in Intermezzo. One reviewer put it like this:

"Rooney’s descriptions of mobile phones, for example, are not sublimated into dull investigations of postmodern communication, but serve simply as the most realistic, intimate descriptions of what it’s actually like to use an iPhone in all of contemporary literature. The way light seems to gather around a screen on a dark evening; the heat of a freshly charged mobile held up to your ear; wondering whether it’s medically possible to hear your lover’s heartbeat on the other end of a phone call."

Have heard No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood and Transcription by Ben Lerner offered up as examples too, though I’ve never read them myself. 

Also, not a book, but Everything Everywhere All At Once obviously nails the freneticism of online life by way of the multiverse metaphor - haven't come across a better attempt since.

Keen to hear any critical thoughts on this topic:)

I was immediately rejected for GSS (despite being well under the max shortfall) and now holding out hope for another type of funding.

Would be really grateful to hear any details from anyone who has received an Excellence Scholarship this year / any other type of post-grad funding from LSE in the past, to help me gauge what kind of chance remains.

Specifically interested in:

- When were you informed that you'd been chosen for an award (was it with your offer, or after?)
- Did you also receive GSS?
- Rough indication of your profile as a student / your approach to the personal statement part of the GSS application.

But any info would be helpful to better understand what feels like a very opaque system!

Thanks!